Coming Home (Norris Lake Series) by Amy Koresdoski Page A

scene.  They’d been there several times since Cat’s last break up.  Lynn Marie was determined to find Cat a suitable date.  Within the hour one of her sister’s male co-workers would be there to meet the famed sister, Cat, another blind date in a series of blind dates, that Cat had met unsuspecting.  Cat stood at the bar ordering a Jim Beam and diet coke when there was a tap on her shoulder, as her sister beckoned for her attention. 
    "Order me another drink, will you?" her sister asked. 
    "One here too," her sister’s boyfriend, Joe, chimed in.  They stood packed against the bar trying to save their spot from an encroaching crowd.  Bodies were pressed tightly against each other as couples went to and from the dance floor and others stood watching the dancers sway to the pounding rhythm of the country music.  She turned around to order the drinks and the dark cowboy was missing from the corner of the bar. 
    "Oh well,” she pondered to herself, "he was too good looking anyway.  Most of the ones that look like that are either conceited or just no good".  She signaled for the bartender’s attention.  He paused to receive her order and she stood waiting for the drinks. 
    There was another tap on her shoulder and she turned around to tell her sister to hang on to her drink for her.  A warm, shiver coursed down her back to the very soles of her feet as her eyes came into contact with the dark stranger’s eyes. 
    The stranger smiled, as if laughing at her discomfort, and in a practiced baritone asked "Dance with me?"  Speechless she just stood there wondering if she was going to be able to say anything and not surprised that nothing came out but a stutter of protest, as he pulled her towards the dance floor. 
    Lynn Marie smiled at Cat as she allowed herself to be propelled towards the center of the floor, a slow pulsing love song filled the air as the lights dimmed slightly. 
    The stranger pulled her close and she allowed herself to be pressed against his chest, her head barely coming to his shoulder.  She felt the warmth of his breath against her neck as she followed his steps.   She couldn’t believe that he had asked her to dance. Things like this...gorgeous men actually noticing her and then asking her to dance just didn’t happen. 
    She stepped back to look up into his face, he asked, "So will you marry me?" and she knew right then that her fate was inescapable.   
    Cat was short, not petite, just a short 5’4".  Or maybe it just seemed that way because the majority of people that she came into contact with every day were taller than her.  Long red hair fell to the middle of her back in uncontrollable waves and red bangs framed her face revealing a pair of light green eyes fringed by thick red lashes, a nose that in her opinion was a little too big, and lips fuller than she would have liked.  
    Her white porcelain skin, with a sprinkling of freckles and deep green eyes flashed her Irish background.  She had a small cleft in her chin.  Her mother said a fairy put it there to charm Cat’s life.  In her opinion, her nose was a little too big and she could have been happier with one of those full lipped pouts her sister had, but all in all it wasn’t a bad face.
    She had an hour glass figure which was not the fashion in a day where beauty in the glamour magazines was a more boyish, anorexic build.  She went to aerobics and ran religiously to be able to eat as she pleased and was satisfied that she was doing the best she could with what she had.  She would never wear a thong bikini or be asked to pose for Playboy, but neither would a lot of other women out there.  When she made a list of her good points, there were a few.    
    When she was growing up, she was the smart one; the middle sister who was not the eldest and not the youngest; not the pretty one nor the athletic one. So she settled for trying to be the smart one.  It had worked when she was in high school.  She passed